Some unexplained results from the XENON1T dark-matter detector — a 1,300-kg vat of super-pure liquid xenon shielded from cosmic rays in a cryostat submerged in water deep 1.5 km beneath the Gran Sasso mountains of Italy — may have been caused by dark energy particles produced in a region of …
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The potential discovery of phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere last year made headlines around the world. On Earth, phosphine is produced by living things. Any detection of it inside another planet’s atmosphere would be a strong potential indicator of life. One reason folks got excited about the possibility is that …
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Using high sensitivity spectroscopic observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have detected a small cyclic molecule called cyclopropenylidene (C3H2) in the atmosphere of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. This composite image shows an infrared view of Titan. In this image blue represents wavelengths centered at 1.3 …
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Humanity spent years wondering if there were planets outside our solar system, and now we know the answer: very much yes. There are thousands of exoplanets in just our little corner of the galaxy, and there’s every reason to expect the same is true of other galaxies. In fact, …
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A ferric mineral called hematite (Fe2O3) is present at high latitudes on the Moon, mostly associated with east- and equator-facing sides of topographic highs, and is more prevalent on the lunar nearside than the farside, according to an analysis of data collected by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) onboard India’s …
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An international team of planetary researchers has discovered the presence of aliphatic organic compounds — carbon-based building blocks that may have a role in the chemistry that creates life — on Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt. And, according to the team, the organics are most likely …
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